Misconception 1.
The reconsolidation process is triggered by the reactivation of a target learning or memory.
Misconception 2.
Disruption of reconsolidation is what erases a target learning.
Misconception 3.
Erasure is brought about during the reconsolidation window by a process of extinction. Reconsolidation is an enhancement of extinction.
Misconception 4.
Anxiety, phobias and PTSD are the symptoms that memory reconsolidation could help to dispel in psychotherapy, but more research must be done before it is clear how reconsolidation can be utilized clinically.
Misconception 5.
Emotional arousal is inherently necessary for inducing the reconsolidation process.
Misconception 6.
What is erased in therapy is the negative emotion that became associated with certain event memories, and this negative emotion is erased by inducing positive emotional responses to replace it.
Misconception 7.
The much older concept of corrective emotional experience already covers everything now being described as reconsolidation and erasure.
Misconception 8.
To induce memory reconsolidation, therapists must follow a set protocol derived from laboratory studies.
Misconception 9.
A long-standing emotional reaction or behavior sometimes ceases permanently in psychotherapy without guiding the steps that bring about erasure through reconsolidation, and this shows that reconsolidation isn’t the only process of transformational change.
Misconception 10.
Carrying out the steps required for reconsolidation and erasure sometimes fails to bring about a transformational change, which means that the reconsolidation process isn’t effective for some emotional learnings.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
